


Falling out of love

by bearcubhoney



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Heartbreak, I'm sorry I was sad and I took it out on my boys, M/M, One Shot, end of a love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25628290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearcubhoney/pseuds/bearcubhoney
Summary: Once upon a time Jisung and Minho made each other happy. They were so in love that the idea of soulmates seemed indisputable. Everything seemed to revolve around their connection like the whole world was created just so they could be together.And then they fell.Falling out of love came just as naturally as falling into it. They no longer looked at each other with the adoration they used to and every ‘I love you’ was a lie. In one last effort to make it work, Jisung and Minho rent a small farmhouse of a couple of days, but sometimes a good thing ends and that’s okay.
Relationships: Han Jisung | Han/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 7
Kudos: 24





	Falling out of love

Jisung and Minho sat silently facing each other but not meeting eyes on either side of the shitty plastic table set up outside the café. The ground was uneven and when one of them moved the entire thing would wobble, knocking their drinks around.

Jisung’s hand rested on the surface. Once upon a time Minho would have reached out and held it, but now he just left it be. Jisung took a sip of his iced tea through a paper straw. It was starting to deteriorate and Jisung struggled to get the liquid through it. Once upon a time, Jisung would have shared it with Minho until the bottle was empty and their kisses tasted like summer.

Once upon a time, Minho was enough for Jisung; once upon a time, Jisung was all Minho needed. Once upon a time, they made each other happy.

That time was passing faster than either of them wanted to admit.

Minho’s phone rang and he stood up from the table to answer it. Jisung didn’t react, just continued to stare at the tiny spider crossing the white plastic. He took another sip of his drink. He thought back to the times when he would have stolen sips of Minho drinks while he was gone, not trying to hide it because he loved the attention Minho gave him when he did so.

He missed the time when he could make Minho laugh, he missed the time when he wanted to.

“How’s everything going?” The waitress came over to the table, her apron had a coffee stain down the front.

_Terribly._

_I’m losing him and I can’t bring myself to fight for him._

_I don’t think I love him anymore._

_Why do I still hold on then?_

Jisung smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“We’re fine, thank you.” He hated how easily the lie fell from his lips.

_‘We’re fine’, ‘I’m okay’, ‘I love him’._

They were lies that he had repeated so often, that sometimes he thought he might be able to trick himself into believing it too.

He had lied to his friends when he was fighting with Minho. He had lied again when the fighting stopped and the silence started.

He lied to his family when, for the first time in five years, he didn’t invite Minho over for Christmas and lied to them when he cried through the night.

He lied to Minho every time he said, ‘I love you’. Jisung couldn’t remember when he stopped meaning it.

He was lying and he was sure Minho knew it. He was sure because he could tell that Minho no longer meant it either.

Jisung squeezed his eyes shut as tears threatened to build behind his eyelids. If he didn’t love Minho, why did it hurt so much?

“Are you ready to go?” Minho asked. The came back over to the table but didn’t sit back down. He didn’t offer an explanation for the phone call, Jisung didn’t ask.

Jisung’s glass was still half full but he nodded anyway.

“Sure.” He sighed loudly as he stood up. Minho just picked up his bag from under his chair.

They walked to Minho’s car together, but Minho felt so distant beside him. They passed a dog on their way. Jisung didn’t point it out like he used to.

“I messaged Chan to tell him we were coming home,” Minho said as he unlocked the car. His voice faltered for the first time and Jisung felt his heartbreak.

“What did he say?” Jisung asked quietly. He couldn’t bring himself to get in.

“Not much,” Minho didn’t get in either, “I think he was disappointed. I think he would rather us stayed the whole time. I think he wanted us to try harder.”

Jisung nodded,

“This is the end, isn’t it?”

Minho shut the car door without getting in. There was a moment of silence.

“Yeah… I think it is.”

A tear rolled down Jisung’s face. His knees seemed to collapse underneath him, and he sunk down to the tarmac.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t make it work.” His voice broke with the promise of a sob.

“Ahh, Sungie…” Minho crouched down beside him, “don’t cry.” He wiped the tear from Jisung’s cheek but Jisung could see them building in Minho’s eyes too, “We made it work. We made it work for a really long fucking time,” Minho laughed and shook his sadly.

Jisung reached out and stroked his hair, and Minho leant into his touch.

“You were happy right?” Jisung could hear how desperate he sounded. Desperate to know that their love was real, no matter how long it had been since the last sparks had faded.

Minho nodded; his lip quivered.

“The happiest.”

Jisung laughed but mostly tears. The salt stung on his skin, under his nose and in the corners of his eyes.

“I used to think we were going to last forever,” Jisung admitted, sniffing loudly, and rubbing his face with the sleeve of his hoodie.

“So did I,” Minho agreed sadly, “I used to dream about growing old with you.”

“Me too.” Jisung moved his hand from Minho’s hair to cup his cheek.

“I used to dream about buying a house near the beach, getting a dog, teaching at a local school, painting the walls yellow and coming home to you every day.” Minho tilted his head up to the sky and leant back against the bumper of the car. Jisung shifted his body to sit beside him.

“That would have been nice.” Jisung agreed.

_That would have been nice._

It would have been nice when they still smiled together when the sun reminded Minho of Jisung and the moon of Minho when they still loved each other.

It would have been nice.

But not anymore.

“When we left… Did you think we could be happy again?” Jisung asked; he rested his head on Minho’s shoulder.

“There was a moment when I hoped,” Minho hilted his head and kissed Jisung’s hair, “When we got to the house and you flung open the door of the car and ran out to see the sheep.” Minho smiled softly, “For a moment you were eighteen again, and I was so, so in love with you.”

Jisung nodded. He understood.

“Then the moment passed.” Minho breathed out slowly, “and I realised can never return to who we were.”

“I’m sorry.” Jisung shut his eyes again. His nose was running.

“Me too.”

Once upon a time, Jisung was eighteen and Minho was twenty. They were two halves of a whole, so undeniably built for each other that the possibility of soulmates seemed undeniable. Once upon a time, they used to dream hand in hand, because their futures seemed so intertwined it was impossible for them to imagine a day when they weren’t together.

Once upon a time, they were in love.

And before that, they had been falling.

Falling in love, falling into each other.

Then they fell again.

Jisung had always wondered why people said, ‘falling in love’. But then he did, and it all made sense.

There was an initial drop. For Jisung it was the first time Minho kissed him. His breath was taken and for the briefest moment, Jisung thought ‘I love him’, but he didn’t not yet.

The longer Jisung spent with Minho the deeper he fell. Even when he thought it was impossible to be more enamoured, the next day he would wake up, just that little bit more in love.

Love dragged you in, it held you tight; you were undeniably falling.

Minho and Jisung were undeniably falling.

And they had fallen again.

They had fallen out of love.

Their hold on each other had slipped and they were left clawing at empty air looking for the person who had occupied the space, but not being able to because they both had changed. They were no longer able to fill the shape in the others life where they had fit so perfectly before. Their names began to sound wrong together and subconsciously their dreams no longer included the other.

They weren’t a whole anymore. They were two broken halves who didn’t fit with each other, no matter how much they would have liked to.

They were Minho and Jisung, but they were two separate people rather than a pair.

“We could have been good,” Jisung whispered, no longer crying but with an undisputable sadness in his voice.

“We were,” Minho pet his hair, “and then we weren’t. Good things come to an end.”

The sun started to disappear behind the horizon bathing the car park in golden light. Jisung let his eyes flutter shut, the warmth of the sun on his skin and his head rested on Minho’s shoulder. His heart clenched with the fragility and nostalgia of the moment.

They could get in the car, drive back to the farm, climb back into bed, and spend the last day here. The owner wouldn’t mind, they were supposed to be leaving the next day anyway. Maybe another night could save them.

_Good things come to an end._

Jisung smiled, the bittersweet coming over him.

They were beyond saving.

“Let’s go.”

The drive back to the city was silent. The night fell over the land as Minho and Jisung walked away from the last remaining threads of their bond. They were leaving it behind, the times they laughed, the times they cried, the fighting and the caring, everything. Tears fell soundlessly down Jisung’s cheeks. They could keep the memories; sometimes that had to be enough.

When Minho pulled into the drive to Jisung’s apartment block, just like he had done a hundred times before, the permanence of the end sunk in.

It was a goodbye that would last forever.

Jisung opened the door and stepped out. Minho hadn’t parked the car but there was no one around so it didn’t matter.

Jisung opened the trunk and pulled out his suitcase before heading back around to the driver’s side. Minho rolled down the window and Jisung was reminded of the days when he would refuse to leave until Minho had kissed him goodbye through the open door.

“Are you sure you can get that up the stairs?” Minho asked he was tapping the steering wheel nervously and Jisung nodded. The elevator had been fixed three months ago, but Minho couldn’t have known that. He hadn’t been inside since.

“I guess this is it.” Minho laughed sadly.

_The end._

“Yeah, I guess so.”

They were quiet for a moment, both hesitant to be the first to step away.

“Jisung, I truly am glad for the time we spent together.” Minho sniffed as a fresh wave of tears fell down his face, “I’m going to miss you.”

Jisung smiled sadly as his own tears started to fall again too.

“Me too.” He rolled the ring Minho had given him between his fingers.

“I hope you will always remember us as something good, not as something that failed.” Minho’s hand lifted off the wheel for a moment as if he were considering opening the car door.

“I’ll try.” Jisung’s head dropped for a moment, “It feels like we failed though.”

“I know.”

_Good things come to an end._

Jisung let go of his case and came right up to the car. He reached for Minho’s hand, and gently rubbed it.

“Please keep this.” He gestured to the matching ring. They had gotten them together, and for years their friends used to joke that they had gotten married without telling anyone. Neither took them off, even when they were fighting, even when the end seemed undeniable, they were a piece of hope. Now the end had arrived, there was no longer that hope, all they had left were the memories.

“Bye Minho.”

_I loved you._

“Goodnight Jisung.”

_I loved you too._

Jisung didn’t look back as he walked through the front door to his apartment and he hoped Minho didn’t either as he drove away.

Minho and Jisung walked out of each other life just as quickly as they had entered it.

_Good things come to an end._

**Author's Note:**

> So, the other day I was sad. I think that was kind of obvious.
> 
> I wrote this at two in the morning on a Monday crying as I did so. I couldn’t look at it for a couple of days because it reminded me of her and I didn’t think I could face it, but it's been a moment and I finally read it over. I’m actually pretty proud of my sleep-deprived self for this one. 
> 
> Sometimes things don’t work out and that’s okay. 
> 
> Shameless plug, if you enjoy heartbreak in a story, please read my ongoing project, Loving You (Hating You). It won’t be quite this sad, I promise, but it does explore the theme of heartbreak.


End file.
